抄録
Since J. A. Cramer published the fragment of a theory of comedy for the first time in 1839, from the Tractatus Coislinianus, manuscript of the 10th century, No.120 of the "De Coislin collection" in Paris, it has been discussed for a long time whether the Tractatus represents the lost comedy-section of Aristotle's Poetics. Some parts of it are inferred not directly to be derived from his works and some other parts show a worse acquaintance with the Poetics. It shows, however, many skillful combinations of materials from the Poetics, the Rhetoric and the Ethics. Adding to this, the following three points are of great significance for the positive estimate of the Tractatus : (1) the list of the sources of comic effects. (2) the differentiation of comic ethos from comic dianoia. (3) its actual correlation with the phenomena of ancient comedies. Thus we can conclude that the loss caused by the disappearance of the second book of the Poetics could be compensated by the study of the Tractatus, as far as the comedy part is concerned.
